Ease college path for low-income

San Gabriel Valley Tribune 4/10/07

It's pretty much a given that any high school student applying for college must face the dreaded SAT. However, for his family, a more foreboding test is the 100-question Free Application for Student Aid or FAFSA. It's often what leaves students and parents in the dust.

Two members of Congress, authors of the College Aid Made EZ Act, cite a nonprofit study estimating that, of those students enrolled in college in 2004 and eligible for federal Pell Grants, about 1.5 million had not even applied.

Why?

They flunked the FAFSA.

Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., want to see the gatekeeping financial aid application simplified so that parents and students - especially those of low- and moderate-

income status - will be able to fill it out and receive financial assistance for college tuition and expenses.

Their bill, HR1277, would reduce the number of questions from 100 to 50 and allow the Department of Education to receive the applicant's financial information from the Internal Revenue Service. Students would no longer be guessing on the FAFSA question, "What is your family's net worth?" - rather, the information would be digitally transferred from their parents' tax returns.

Miller and Emanuel want to lower the hurdles that low- and moderate-income families have to jump over to get their son or daughter to college. Some say the financial aid

application can take 100 hours to fill out, causing many parents to give up before completing it. Not having financial aid "can make or break a student's decision over whether they can afford going to college," said Miller.

Unfortunately, past attempts at such smart reforms like this have not flown in the Beltway. Seems like cutting red tape for Americans is anathema to Congress. Another strike against the bill is that it requires two giant bureaucracies - the Department of Education and the IRS - to work together.

How often does that kind of cooperation happen in Washington? This is the same town that took years to get the FBI and the NSA to talk to each other - and that was after an attack on Washington and New York that killed more than 3,000 innocent people.

That's more reason why every high school student, parent, PTA, community college board and local school board member should send letters to Miller and Emanuel in support of HR1277.

Put simply, the region needs to see more low-income kids going to college. If, by simplifying the financial aid process, it encourages one family to apply for aid and receive it, it would have been worth the effort.

Clearing a path from high school to college for more students should be a No.1 goal for these groups. We would hope Congress and the Department of Education share that goal.